Noise-Driven Sidebranching in the Boundary-Layer Model of Dendritic Solidification

Abstract
We suggest that dendritic sidebranches may, under some circumstances, be generated by selective amplification of noisy fluctuations near the tip. Our proposal is based on numerical and analytic studies of the dynamics of the two-dimensional boundary-layer model with kinetic crystalline anisotropy. Certain features of this stochastic process should make it experimentally distinguishable from a deterministic, dynamical sidebranching mechanism.